


don't you call anybody else baby

by dollylux



Category: Actor RPF, Eyewitness (US TV) RPF
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, First Christmas, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Pining, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 14:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8848360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: James stays in LA while Tyler goes back east to visit family.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavishsqualor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavishsqualor/gifts).



> i'm, um. kind of freaked out and shocked that this is the first james/tyler fic? like, what is wrong with this world? (if i had known that, there would be a lot more sex in it.)
> 
> day one of the 12 days of xmas challenge. prompt/inspiration: 'way down we go' by kaleo.
> 
> title from 'baby' by warpaint.
> 
> for squal, who deserves love and happiness<3

It’s sixty-eight degrees at 8pm two days before Christmas.

It’s weather most people would kill for this time of year, that some people travel thousands of miles to seek out. It’s the kind of weather that usually sends James outside, has him feeling all poetic and like scratching some songs into his notebook, working out some beats, maybe even brooding, if that’s what he wants to do.

Tonight would be perfect for it, the moon out and bright up here away from the lights of downtown, a tipped silver teacup spilling stars down and down and down until he feels like he could touch them. And he’s feeling it too; broody, that is. Feeling a bone-deep need to stare at the stars and obsess and put pen on paper, but they’re having a holiday party.

Fifty people the last he’d heard, all friends or friends of friends or fuckbuddies of friends, all dressed in shine and sparkle, all laughing and drinking from the truly impressive collection of alcohol on the table near the pool. No one’s sloppy, not yet, but there’s a lot of dancing, a lot of Santa hats and people disappearing into the house, probably to find an empty room.

Elise had tried to get him to dress up, had laid out a suit with a velvet jacket and a black fedora, but he’d drifted past it and out onto the back deck.

He’s in a hoodie that he’s got covering his head and his hands, and in his headphones he doesn’t hear the loud Christmas music, doesn’t hear the laughter from the open mouths of his friends, doesn’t hear the overlapping conversations. The lounge chair is tucked back away to make room for tables and he feels invisible here, hidden in a shadowed corner while Keaton Henson sounds lonely and cold in song after song in his ears.

He does not want to be here.

The phone stays in his pocket, plugged up to his headphones and clutched in his hand but out of sight. He grips it for comfort, for the possibilities it presents, for the _maybes_ of it all.

It’s on do not disturb except for one number, but it hasn’t vibrated all evening. All day.

He feels the obsessive pull to look, to check again just to make sure, but he knows what he’ll find if he opens the text conversation:

_just landed! already freezing my ass off. :P text later, man.  
Sent 8:36pm_

And so what if he hasn’t texted? It doesn’t mean anything. He’s visiting family, got plenty more shit to do than to sit around and text a friend for no reason at all.

Anyway, it’s not like it matters.

He slides back on the chair and looks up at the sky, the stars dulling under the bright twinkle lights dotting the backyard. Michigan probably has so many stars. So many places where you can go out somewhere and park and just see them forever. Billions and billions of stars.

He wonders if Tyler’s looking at the stars.

James hesitates before he pulls the phone out of his pocket, but only for a second. This is stupid. It’s stupid that he’s making a big deal out of this, it’s stupid that he’s overthinking everything, and it’s stupid that this right here, this last text sent at 8:36pm last night, is why he’s hiding at his own party.

_68 degrees here, dude. how many pairs of socks you got on? :)_

There. It’s done. Now he can haul his ass up and put on the jacket and the hat and--

Tyler’s texting him back.

He falls back down onto his skinny ass on the chair and clutches the phone in both hands, not caring that the glare of the light is giving away his hiding place, that he looks like a lovesick idiot watching the little typing bubble and waiting for a text.

Everybody else is drunk anyway.

_lol i hate you. just one pair. but i’m inside in front of the fireplace. got cocoa with marshmallows and everything._

Before James can reply, a picture comes through of just that: Tyler’s socked feet and a crackling fireplace in the background, a big mug of cocoa with melting marshmallows held in one delicate hand.

He turns on his side on the lounge chair, curling up around his phone with a smile he’s not even aware of. He saves the picture before he even tries to venture a reply, and he wonders if it’s just him who’s feeling like they’re sharing this moment, maybe right there in front of the fireplace.

_that looks amazing actually :( but how do i know those are your feet, huh? you might just be tricking me…_

He can hear Tyler’s snort from here, and the grin that stretches out on his face as he watches the ‘...’ bubble is so big it hurts.

Another picture comes through, this one of Tyler with messy, soft hair and his grey hoodie on, the giant mug of hot cocoa held up to his mouth, his eyes huge and focused right on the camera as he takes a sip.

_there. now do you believe me??_

_and don’t act like you couldn’t recognize me by my feet in the first place ;)_

That picture gets saved so fast his thumb hurts from the lunge, and he stares at it, into Tyler’s eyes so long that the colors blur, everything falling away but dark brown eyes and long lashes.

Pathetic. He’s fucking pathetic.

_you have no business looking that hot in pjs_

He groans at himself, reaching up to wipe hard at his face as he flops over onto his back, staring up at the palm tree that curves up over the roof of the house. He feels like he’s back in fucking high school again.

His phone vibrates in his hand.

_you should see me out of them_

James stares at the little smirking emoji instead of reading the words before it, holding his phone so tight he’s afraid it might break.

_been there, done that, you little shit. hey, sorry to bother ya. just wanted to see how you were. go relax!_

He hits send and forces himself to stand up, pushes his hood down and his headphones off, his phone going back in his pocket and staying there. It will be two hours before he dares to look at it again, at Tyler’s reply that had come the same minute James had texted him, in the form of two messages:

_i am relaxing. and talking to you is the most relaxing thing i could possibly do._

_miss you._

 

It’s nearly 3am when he sits down on his side of the bed, unshowered and high and half-drunk, his phone on 5% in his hand. He’s staring at the text messages, reading them over and over again and wondering if Tyler thinks he weirded him out, if those words just weren’t important enough to reply to. 

Elise falls into bed in one of James’s t-shirts and sighs when her head hits the pillow.

“Babe?” she ventures, tugging her sleepmask down over her eyes. “Can you hit the light?”

“What time is it in Michigan?” he asks. The light stays on.

It’s quiet behind him for a minute.

“I don’t know, like… oneish? It’s two hours difference, right?”

His thumb hovers over the keyboard, his hair shaggy and sweaty and in his eyes. Elise shifts on the bed behind him.

“James,” she says, quiet.

He hums in reply, watching the 5% of his battery go down to four.

“Just… go,” she sighs, drawing his attention finally. He turns to look at her, his eyes as wide as a stoner’s can be.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Wherever he is,” she says, one side of her mask lifted. She motions at James’s phone. “It’s where you’ve been since he left anyway.”

He looks back down at his phone, tears burning at the back of his eyes like they’ve been hovering there all along. He swallows, the click of his dry throat loud in the otherwise quiet room.

“But Christmas--”

“Go,” she says, in a tone that reminds James of his mom, but the hand that squeezes his forearm is kind. Maybe even understanding.

It hasn’t been normal by anyone else’s standards since he met Tyler last year, and the relief at finally being able to even talk around it eases some of the tension in his chest.

“Thanks,” he manages, hesitating for a few more seconds before he stands up again, heading for the bathroom, his fingers flying over the screen at the same speed of his nervous heart.

_you awake?_

 

LAX is amazingly quiet at 5am, and he gets through security and on the plane in a kind of waking-dream slowness, all sound dampened behind his headphones as light hovers on the edge of the horizon. He watches the sun come up as they take off, the brilliant wash of colors following him back east, chasing down the dawn as he heads towards Tyler.

Turns out Tyler hadn’t been lying about how fucking cold Michigan is.

He’s dressed in a knit beanie and three layers under his puffiest winter coat, and his face is still frozen by the time he gets his rental car (some kind of zippy blue hatchback that Tyler will undoubtedly give him shit about) and plugs in his phone to nav him to Tyler’s grandma’s house.

He’s terrible at driving in the snow, and the early morning sun is blinding and has his hands gripping the wheel while he leans forward, his exhausted eyes focused on the road that will lead him to a road that leads him to a road that will take him to Tyler.

It’s almost 10am when he pulls up in front of her house, the Christmas tree twinkling in the picture window. Everyone in the house has to be awake now, has to be stirring and having breakfast on Christmas Eve morning, and they’ll all see him and wonder what the fuck he’s doing here, who he is that he traveled all night across the country to be here when he could be anywhere else, with anyone else.

Surely they’ll take one look at him, at the bleary, desperate look in his eyes, and know.

The front door opens just as James turns off the car.

Tyler steps out onto the porch, burrowed in an oversized hoodie and wearing plaid pajama pants, his face pale and mostly hidden under the hood. James climbs out of the car without looking away even once, forgetting his bag in the backseat and that it’s probably below freezing and that he won’t be seeing his Mom and Dad for Christmas tomorrow and forgetting that he’s supposed to be straight and be getting his shit together at this point, because the sight of Tyler has pieces coming together James didn’t even know existed, has a kind of peace settling in around his bones that he’s only read about, wrote about, played on TV.

He nearly falls on the first step up onto the porch.

“Shit!” Tyler laughs, rushing toward him and reaching out to steady him. James’s face burns red as he regains control of his body and manages the rest of the icy steps without incident, and maybe it’s because he’s exhausted and has been thinking about this moment for hours and hours, but he doesn’t hesitate to step in close to Tyler the second they’re on equal ground and wrap his arms around him, pulling him in as close as he possibly can.

Tyler sinks in without so much as a pause, his arms sliding around James’s body and squeezing James fiercely, burrowing his face into James’s layers of clothes, into his neck that’s warm from the heater in the car.

“I’m an idiot,” James whispers, the words coming out more vulnerable than he ever imagined, his voice wavering as he clutches at him. “I-I’m sorry. Jesus, I know this is so fucked up. I know I shouldn’t be here. This is your time with your family and you don’t need some--”

“Shut up,” Tyler mumbles, pulling back and reaching for James’s hand, letting their fingers tangle like they’re filming a scene, like they’re not themselves but their characters. 

_But we’re not. We’re_ us _. We’re us and we’re here, and this is happening._

The inside of the house is warm and smells like pancakes and a wood-burning fireplace, and the noise from the kitchen tells James that’s where everyone is.

“You can meet ‘em later,” Tyler says, not bothering to be quiet as he leads James upstairs. It doesn’t feel like sneaking, like Tyler’s worried about them getting caught. James relaxes a little, not bothering to tiptoe or breathe softly as they pad through the carpeted hallway upstairs and into a room at the end of the hall.

It’s a guest room at a grandmother’s house and nothing more, all soft colors and blinds and teddy bears on the dresser, but Tyler’s jeans are thrown over the back of the overstuffed armchair next to the window and his duffel is kicked into the corner beside the closet. The blinds are closed, and with the door shut behind them, it’s hard to tell what time of day it is, that it’s even daylight at all.

“James, you’re exhausted,” Tyler says, his hands on James’s forearms and squeezing as he leads him over to the bed. “Did you sleep on the plane?”

“Couldn’t,” James replies, sitting down on the bed where Tyler guides him and kneels in front of him, tugging off James’s ratty old Vans. “Couldn’t stop thinking. Couldn’t make my mind shut up the whole time.”

Tyler doesn’t reply, doesn’t ask what he was thinking about, just stays where he is and works James out of his layers until he’s in just a henley and his jeans and socks, his eyes bloodshot and focused forever on Tyler’s sleep-soft, lovely face.

“Gotta get those jeans off,” Tyler finally says, leaning back on his haunches and meeting James’s eyes with a half-smile. “I don’t think you want me doin’ that.”

“I don’t mind,” James replies, maybe too soft, too honest. Tyler looks right at him, his eyes widening a little as he rests his hands on James’s knees, thumb circling absently over the bony knob of his kneecap.

They watch each other as Tyler unbuckles his belt and undoes his jeans, the sounds dirty like sex and making the back of James’s neck flush hot. He doesn’t know why they’re doing this, why he’s letting Tyler undress him like he’s little or sick or Tyler’s husband, but they’re both caught up in by the end, both breathing a little harder as James lifts his hips and Tyler tugs on his jeans, pulling until they’re off, tossed in the pile on the floor with everything else.

Tyler looks so much like Philip there on his knees, those big dark eyes submissive in a way that shatters something vital in James, makes him frantic, makes him want to hide Tyler in all the covers on this bed and not let anyone else see this side of him, this stripped-down, raw side that James swears is their secret.

No one else has seen Tyler like this. No one.

“I didn’t sleep either,” he finally says, whispered. A confession. He lifts up from his haunches onto his knees and moves in close, tucking them into each other’s orbit like they’ve been prone to do since day one. James laces their fingers together again, gentle and slow, meant to be felt down to the whorls of their fingers, meant to tuck away the memory of the exact length of their fingernails.

It’s been months and months, but James hasn’t taken for granted a single second he’s spent with Tyler. Not one.

“Will you…” James starts, the rest of the sentence playing out in his head, and it sounds more suggestive than he means. He licks his dry lips, thumb rubbing across one the raised veins on the back of Tyler’s hand.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, like James said anything that made sense.

He lifts up and crowds James until he has no choice but to scoot back on the bed where the covers are all messy and the sheets are warm from Tyler’s body. The bed’s small but they’re both scrawny, and their feet nudge at the footboard even as they make room in the full-sized bed for two grown boys.

Tyler pulls the blankets up around them and the smell of Tyler’s body surrounds them, overwhelming James to the point of tears. He closes his eyes and breathes deep, glad not to see Tyler’s expression as a tear finally escapes from one of James’s eyes and slips away to soak into flannel sheets.

Tyler’s hand finds his sweaty, messy hair, smoothing it back as they settle deeper into the bed, burrowed under layers and layers of blankets. James sniffles like a child, his throat aching around everything he’s holding in, everything he’s held in for too long now. He can smell Tyler’s breath, warm and sour, and even the scent of it breaks James’s heart, burdens him with familiarity.

“Sleep,” Tyler whispers, and James’s body gives in like it was simply waiting for his permission.


End file.
